Former F1 world champion Michael Schumacher is continuing to be monitored and assessed hour-by-hour after his skiing accident on Sunday.

A press conference was held this morning and in it doctors in Grenoble said he remains in a ‘critical condition’. The 44-year-old has been put in an artificial coma in a bid to reduce inter-cranial pressure.

Schumacher hit his head on a rock while skiing off piste in the French resort of Meribel yesterday morning. He was airlifted to a local hospital in Meribel, before being transferred to a larger one in Grenoble, where he was immediately operated on to remove a blood clot. There had been reports he had a second operation overnight, however, officials said this was not the case and that currently they do not intend to operate for a second time.

Asked about his future, doctors added that it was ‘far too early to say anything as far as prognosis is concerned’.

“We cannot tell you what the outcome will be yet,” reporters were told. “All we can do is wait.

“We are working hour-by-hour, we cannot say anything more, we cannot speculate. He is in a critical situation, and we can say he is fighting for his life.

“We will update you more as soon as we feel it will be useful.”

The injury suffered was described as a ‘typical’ skiing accident, something that occurs on a ‘frequent basis’, although it was acknowledged that the fact he was wearing a helmet did help protect him and that without it he would not be here now.

Introduced for this season, Race Direction can sanction a rider with between 1 and 10 Penalty Points for ‘endangering other riders or committing other serious offences’. Points accumulate with punishments given once 4 points (back of the grid start at next race), 7 points (pit lane start at next race) and 10 points (disqualification from next race) are reached.

Instead of being erased at the end of each season, from 2014 any Penalty Points will remain in place for one calendar year. The previous system meant points awarded during the final race of the year would be meaningless. Likewise, the change reduces the temptation for riders without Penalty Points to take greater risks as the season progresses.

Rookie champion Marc Marquez came closest to suffering a back of the grid start this year, accumulating three Penalty Points after incidents at Silverstone and Aragon.

A statement from the Grand Prix Commission – also outlining regulations for races that suffer more than one restart, protests and wild-cards – can be seen below. New regulations for Moto3 can be found here:

All Classes – Effective 2014Penalty Points
“In 2013 any Penalty Points imposed were wiped from the record of the rider at the end of the season. From 2014 penalty points will remain on the record of the rider for 365 days after which they will be cancelled. This means that a rider will have a rolling tally of penalty points with new points being added as incurred and points being deducted on their anniversary.

Restarting Interrupted Races
“It was recognised that there may be circumstances when an interrupted race is restarted that it might be necessary to interrupt the restarted race. Currently there are no provisions in the regulations to provide for this race to be restarted.

“From 2014 restarted races that are interrupted after less than five laps are completed will be restarted again. In the Moto3 and Moto2 classes there will be a maximum of two restarts. In the MotoGP class the Race Direction can authorise more than two restarts according to the circumstances.

“The precise details of the lengths of the restarted races and the determination of the final race results will be published in the FIM regulations.

Protests
“The deadline for registering a protest has been reduced from one hour after publication of the results to 30 minutes.

“The party involved must announce their intention to protest within 30 minutes by verbally notifying Race Direction or IRTA. They then have a deadline of one hour from the publication of results to confirm their protest in writing or, indeed, to announce that they have decided not to proceed with their protest.

Wild Card

“Wild card entries that cancel their entry after acceptance, other than due to injury or other valid reason, will no longer be reimbursed the cost of the one event GP licence issued by the FIM.

“Similarly, the entry fee paid by the wild card to cover the cost of the materials provided for his participation will not be refunded in full by IRTA unless the Federation can provide an alternate rider to take his place. If no replacement is provided by the Federation then only 50% of the entry fee will be refunded.

“In future wild card entries will be allocated temporary pit box accommodation in the paddock alongside the pit boxes provided for contracted teams who have not qualified for a permanent pit box. The entry fee will be increased by €500.00 as a contribution towards the cost.”

Daniel Ricciardo says he is confident about what he can achieve when he makes the move to Red Bull for the 2014 F1 season, with the Australian insisting that he plans to let his driving do the talking next year.

The Australian will replace countryman Mark Webber as team-mate to four-time champion Sebastian Vettel next season as he makes the switch from Toro Rosso, with many expecting big things from the 24-year-old when he steps into a top car for the first time.

Ricciardo himself however insists he isn’t getting carried away with the move and said he was confident in his ability, even if he refused to be drawn on what he expects to achieve against the defending champion.

“You know what they say, talk is cheap,” he told ESPN. “So I’m not going to say I’m going to beat him and that’s it, but all I can say is that I have confidence in myself and until I go up against him like-for-like and on the same day I really don’t know how good I am in comparison to him.

“I know I’m going up against a very strong kid but I have faith that I can give him a bit of a push. We’ll soon find out – hopefully I’m not a second off; that would suck! I’ll try to see what he’s doing that’s so special.”

Ricciardo makes the move to Red Bull at a time when F1 is bringing in wide-ranging new engine regulations, and he admitted that the change would benefit some drivers more than others.

“You’re probably going to find that the more disciplined drivers are going to cope better; the guys who are able to stop the car a bit more in the corner and straight-line the exit,” he said. “So not combining the throttle too much with the slip of the tyre and killing the tyre. From what we understand the tyres are going to be much harder next year, so they can probably tolerate a bit more of that.”

Christian Horner says it is difficult to find the words to describe how impressive he feels Sebastian Vettel’s current winning run is after the German made it seven victories in a row in Abu Dhabi.

Success at Yas Marina allowed Vettel to match Michael Schumacher’s seven-in-a-row from the 2004 season, and put him just behind the all-time record of nine held by Alberto Ascari.

Comparing Vettel’s current run with that of Schumacher, Horner said it was equally – if not more – impressive than the results enjoyed by the former Ferrari man with his victory in Abu Dhabi being one of the highlights.

“It was absolutely mind-blowing in many respects,” he told Reuters. “After the start, Seb just got his head down and disappeared.

“The times now are very different [compared to in Schumacher’s day. We’re all on a standard tyre now, there’s no testing, we’re limited on the amount of engines we can have, the amount of wind tunnel time and so on.

“So it’s a much more even playing field . It’s always difficult to compare generations with generations but the level at which he’s performing, I don’t have words to describe how phenomenal it is. It’s just truly impressive.”

Should Vettel win the final two races of the year he would match Schumacher’s record of 13 wins in a season and Horner said his quadruple champion had hit form at the right time in the year.

“It’s just truly dominant,” he said. “He has just hit a patch of form that is incredible. We know Mark Webber is a very fine racing driver and in a race that didn’t have any safety cars or any issues, to achieve what he’s done is quite mind blowing,” said Horner.

The World MotoGP Championship fight goes until the end of the season in Valencia this week just left two contender for crown 2013 MotoGP title Marq Marques from Repsol Honda Team and Jorge Lorenzo the defended MotoGP World Champion will take a hard for defending his title. But little bit sign goes for Marq with thirteen advantage over Jorge it’s mean Marq just needed four place finish at the end of the race meanwhile Jorge need more fortune just take a race win. But in MotoGP everything still much can happen we can remembering our memory to last seven year ago where this scenario similar with Valentino Rossi ( Yamaha ) when leading eight point Championship over Nicky Hayden ( Repsol Honda ) everyone believe MotoGP 2006 will goes to Rossi but in fact just at the beginning of the race Rossi make a fatal movement and crash event though he can continuing the race but it’s noting help to defending his Champion title. And for this week race Rossi just gave a message to Marq he will not make a little fault just like me seven year ago. And we just wait and see where the bright sign goes on..

Adrian Newey: He joined Williams because we had managed to build a decent car for the previous three years and he wanted to be in the team he thought built the best car – and unfortunately that ’94 car at the start of the season wasn’t a good car.

Red Bull technical guru Adrian Newey has admitted the death of three-time F1 world champion Ayrton Senna still haunts him.

Senna was killed at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix when he crashed at Tamburello in the Newey-designed Williams FW16.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with BBC Sport, which will be broadcast on Thursday on Radio 5 live, ahead of this weekend’s Korean Grand Prix, the 14th round in the 2013 F1 World Championship, Newey added that ‘no-one will [ever] know’ what caused the accident.

“There was an aura about him, something that’s difficult to describe. He most certainly had a presence. [And] what happened that day, what caused the accident, still haunts me to this day,” Newey said.

“The steering column failure, was it the cause, or did it happen in the accident?” he pondered. “There is no doubt it was cracked. Equally, all the data, all the circuit cameras, the on-board camera from Michael Schumacher’s car that was following, none of that appears to be consistent with a steering-column failure.

“The car oversteered [when the rear tried to spin] initially and Ayrton caught that and only then did it go straight.

“But the first thing that happened was oversteer, in much the same way as you will sometimes see on a superspeedway in the States – the car will lose the rear, the driver will correct, and then it will go straight and hit the outside wall, which doesn’t appear to be consistent with a steering-column failure.”

Newey also said that he was disappointed the FW16 wasn’t initially at the same level as the cars enjoyed by Alain Prost and Nigel Mansell in 1993 and 1992 respectively.

“He joined Williams because we had managed to build a decent car for the previous three years and he wanted to be in the team he thought built the best car – and unfortunately that ’94 car at the start of the season wasn’t a good car,” Newey continued.

“Ayrton’s raw talent and determination… he tried to carry that car and make it do things it really wasn’t capable of. And it just seems such a shame and so unfair he was in that position.

“And then, of course, by the time we did get the car sorted, he wasn’t with us any longer.”

Dorna’s Javier Alonso has admitted the chances of reaching a mutual agreement over the Aragon MotoGP incident involving Repsol Honda’s Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa will be ‘almost impossible’.

A hearing on the incident is scheduled to take place next Thursday at Sepang after Pedrosa’s fading MotoGP title hopes were all but ended when he crashed out of second place on lap six of the race while under pressure from Marquez.

It later transpired that Marquez had made contact with his team-mate’s rear wheel, severing a sensor cable that disabled Pedrosa’s traction control system.

Both riders have been summoned to appear at the hearing on the eve of the first practice session for the Malaysian MotoGP to discuss the incident.

Alonso told MotoGP.com: “This was a very peculiar incident with a very technical element to it. In fact, when we first saw it live we did not think anything had happened, as such; although it appeared as though Marc Marquez had touched Dani Pedrosa, we did not believe that there was any connection between the contact and the subsequent crash for Pedrosa.

“After the race, we knew that there had been a technical problem and that a cut cable had been the most likely cause of Pedrosa’s traction control failure which in-turn caused his retirement. That is when we decided to launch an investigation.

“However, we need to gather an amount of technical data and for this reason we chose to delay the hearing until Malaysia.”

Pedrosa was critical of his young team-mate afterwards, saying he was riding ‘on the limit’ and Alonso has confirmed that the prospect of ‘sanctions’ being imposed on Marquez as a result remained a possibility.

“Everything remains open, ranging from sanction to no sanction,” he said. “What needs to be understood is whether this could have been avoided – both the incident between the two riders and the accident itself – because those are the two important aspects.

“Once we understand all of this, if we are required to take a decision we will take the most suitable one.”

The apportion of blame in a one-off incident such as that which occurred at Aragon is a hot topic of debate and Alonso admitted Race Direction faces a complex scenario.